


and come, come, little moth

by nantes (titians)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:37:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titians/pseuds/nantes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't spend your whole life waiting for the dead to kiss you back. (For loneliness has made her cruel and cold, so won't you come and hold her hand?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and come, come, little moth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antistar_e (kaikamahine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/gifts).



> _“We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost.”_    **D E G O N C O U R T**

 

When her brother is born, Bianca, although still very young, experiences jealousy for the first time.

The feeling boils low in the pit of her stomach and she hates the very sight of him, despises the little snubbed turn-up of his nose and how her mother holds him close to her chest, breathing in the new baby smell of Nico's skin.

Her father is present. He finally has the son he has always wanted.

She stares at her brother, his tiny, toothless mouth opening into a yawn, and her mother smiles, coos even, and beckons her daughter over with an open hand. Bianca takes it and looks down on him, all pink marshmallow soft and warm.

But Bianca is every bit her father's daughter, from the dark curls upon her head and the way she sets her jaw. The way he places his hand on her shoulder reminds her of this.

"You are a big sister now," Hades tells her and Bianca turns her face to look up at him. They have the same eyes, the same Cupid's bow mouth. "You'll have to look after him." She nods, silently replying, I will.

 

*

 

In return for her hatred, the first thing Nico falls in love with is Bianca. Before he properly understands what the word 'love' means, he feels it for her. All sunny and warm, he falls in love with his sister.

His proud, silver sister.

He follows her, stepping on her shadow, wherever she goes. Blindly letting her lead the way.

 

*

 

While still children, the siblings are taken from their mother. They have to hide from Zeus.

Bianca remembers her father's words from the day of Nico's birth, remembers how he clipped his consonants and the way their eyes met. She promised to look after her brother and she does, keeps him safe and holds him when he cries for their mother. Soothes his heated skin, wet with tears, with her cool fingers, brushing away his sweat slick fringe from his forehead.

She kisses his shoulders and lies awake behind him for hours while his breathing evens out and he snores in his sleep.

Eventually Nico forgets, forgets about their mother and their home and their life before all this. He finds new ways to distract himself and other children to talk to within the hotel's four walls.

But Bianca doesn't forget about it all. About their mother and their home. And she never forgets her father's words.

She keeps track of the days, counting them off into weeks. Then months and years. Nico doesn't notice -- he smiles and laughs and exists as a child. But Bianca feels it in her bones, feels herself getting older without growing, seeing things from a different point of view to her sweet, young brother.

When she looks at her hands, she sees the gnarled fingers of an old woman, blemished skin on old bones.

As a daughter of Hades, Bianca di Angelo is all bones.

 

*

 

When they are first found, Nico hides behind her. Hides behind his sister, wrapping his fingers in the back of her shirt and breathing in her cool, calm smell, all apple blossom shampoo and the darker smell of her skin, of her underneath.

Bianca talks to them first, the other kids, the other demi-gods with their bright smiles and all their questions. Question after question after question.

Nico hides behind Bianca and lets her do the talking.

She is his sister. His older sister, his shield of porcelain, of silver, a stronger extension of himself.

The other demi-gods seem nice, like the other kids at the hotel were nice. And Nico had made friends with them easily enough, so it should be the same here. But Nico isn't ready to do that. He was already taken from his mother, now he has been moved again and this time, he feels it will take longer for him to come out.

To stop crying, to stop needing to feel his sister behind him in bed, her cold fingers on his hot skin. To stop needing Bianca.

 

*

 

But then she dies.

And Nico is all alone.

 

*

 

The first thing she thinks of when she wakes up are her father's words; she has broken the promise she made to him, all those years ago. It stabs at her gut and her hatred, the bitter tang of it in her belly that she remembers along with Nico's tiny, toothless mouth, flares up alongside it. It is his fault she's dead.

Nico and that Jackson boy, Poseidon's son, all green eyes and freckles and sea salt.

She thinks of them both and hates them.

And hates herself for leaving her brother behind.

 

*

 

Nico sees her in his dreams. Bianca wears red, stark and brutal against the pale expanse of her skin. She looks beautiful and that only hurts more.

She beckons him to her, long fingers extended to him. He wants to turn away, to run away from her. She isn't his Bianca -- this image of her is older than he ever knew her. It makes him want to cry and he stands there, staring at her fingers, torn between taking her hand and letting her pull him to, to make it better with her cool fingers on his hot skin, and screaming at her to leave him alone.

It has been a year since her death.

The Bianca in front of him smiles, practically snarling at him with too many teeth.

He wants to say something to her, but can't find the words. Instead, he watches her take a bite from an apple. The sound of crunch echoes in his ears and he wakes up in his bed.

The next day, Nico tells Percy about it. Since Bianca's death, Percy has become his shield. Sort of. He is all gold and bright light, spread too far to really protect Nico -- too busy protecting everyone else and Annabeth -- but he is something.

He replies, unhelpfully, "She has eaten the fruit of the dead now. You know how that goes."

Nico guesses it was meant to make him feel better, meant to be a joke or something. But it has the opposite effect. He punches Percy squarely in the arm, smiling to himself when the other boy winces, giving Nico an annoyed 'hey!' in return.

 

*

 

When Luke dies, Bianca tries to make him love her. Or whatever it is a teenage boy and a teenage girl are meant to do, Bianca forever trapped in this young body, ancient inside. It's boring in the underworld, and she does what she can to stay amused. But Luke doesn't take to death the way she, a daughter of Hades, did, and he turns to grey, gets lost amongst the other souls and disappears from her sight.

Bianca remains solid. Cold and solid and proud, always her father's daughter.

Luke also couldn't love her when his heart is so firmly attached to another. She hears whispers of it, coming down into the ground from above. She hears of his death, his last words to Percy, all noble intentions and a pure heart.

The only heart that has ever loved her is Nico, who is still alive while she is dead. And she hates him for that.

 

*

 

It continues like this for years; Bianca, angry and alone and useless in the underworld, and Nico, alive and warm and dreaming of her.

Nico hates her for leaving him. And loves her, because that's all he has ever known how to do.

 

*

 

Sometimes in his dreams, she is soft. She is the beautiful girl he remembers even though he has grown and she hasn't and it is Nico who wraps Bianca up in his arms and holds her to him, presses warm kisses into the cold, pale flesh of her shoulders, all bone and skin and the notches of her spine pressed to the muscle of his chest.

Sometimes he dreams of turning her over to face him, his sister, and kissing her on the mouth. He always hates himself in the morning after these dreams.

Other times, she is older, as she should be, all beautiful and bold and alive, and she is the one to pull him to her. To press her cold lips to his, with her arm around his shoulders and his hand on her waist until the two of them lie down on the grass, his fingers moving along her skin, under her dress and she gasps against his mouth as her hips spread and all Nico wants is her. Bianca, Bianca, Bianca, saying her name like it is the only thing he knows any more. And finally she is warm, like he is, like he has always been and she never has.

He hates himself most for these dreams.

And her too.

Because she is dead. But it is wrong to hate the dead. Especially for being dead.

 

*

 

Percy tells him to move on. Bianca has been dead so long the demi-gods now staying at the camp have no idea she ever existed. But Nico doesn't listen to him.

Because Percy has no right to judge him. Not when he loves Luke -- even though the way he loves Luke is nothing like the way Nico loves Bianca -- but tries to hide it by loving Annabeth.

No, Nico doesn't listen to Percy.

Whenever he is around him, he gets this itch in his fingers, like he wants to punch something. Probably Percy. But he doesn't do that either.

 

*

 

Sometimes Bianca wants to turn into a shade, to disappear like the rest of them and be lost forever. But she is a daughter of Hades and that isn't possible for her. She wants to forget, but she can't. No, unlike the others, she remains almost whole, solid and silver. Her father's daughter.

She has never forgotten her father's words. Or her brother's face, smiling up at her the week before she died. A missing tooth and a crooked mouth, the corner of his eyes wrinkled and his eyes shining. She had ruffled a hand through his hair and kissed his forehead, goodbye.

His face was the last thing she thought of before she died. Bianca has always wanted to tell someone that.

Pity there is no one in the underworld to listen.

She thinks about his face a lot now. Wonders what he looks like after all these years, how his face has grown and aged, if he has any scars or piercing or an obnoxious tattoo of something stupid, like an owl, with no meaning, on his neck or anything else ridiculous Nico could think to do with his face.

All the things Bianca never got the chance to do. Because she died and her brother lives.

She doesn't forget to hate him for this.

 

*

 

To see her again, all Nico would have to do is die.

But, the same way he doesn't punch Percy and he doesn't stop loving Bianca, he doesn't do that either.

Nico stays alive because Bianca is dead. It is stupid and selfish of him, to keep them separated, but part of him wants to believe that is what she wants him to do. That his big sister wants him to keep living, because she died and one of them should get to experience life.

One day he will see her again, and tell her all the things he did without her. And she will pull him into her wrap him up in a hug, her lips to his skin. But this time, he will be cold too. All cold and bones, the two of them, children of Hades, dead and in the underworld.

Together.

But for now, they remain apart. Two halves of a whole, with one living and one dead.

Bianca, his proud, silver sister and Nico, her sweet, warm brother.


End file.
